Away From Here
by DeltaG
Summary: Scout origin story. Alexander Brass is from a poor family in Boston. His love for baseball is only second to his need to keep his family safe, healthy, and alive. His crisis only extends further when he falls deep into the world of the underground, where death surrounds him and only makes him wish he'd stayed away.


**A/N: Scout origin story. Reviews are appreciated.**

_Boston, Massachusetts, June 21st, 1965_

The wind whipped through the fifteen year-old teen's hair, knocking the cap from his head. He sighed and ran after it, reaching for it and finally grabbing it, placing it firmly upon his head and tightening it so it wouldn't fall off again.

Alexander Brass was the teen. He smiled as he entered the familiar store where he worked for the money he needed for his family of five, and saw the manager behind the desk. Mr. Timothy Ross smiled at him and placed a can of his favorite drink on the counter. Oh, the sweet, sweet Bonk atomic punch...

Ross' General Store, that was the name. The old man had owned the store after his father had, a good forty or so years ago, making the current owner in his late fifties or early sixties, of course Alex never asked.

"Mornin' Mr. Ross." Alex took off his cap and went over to the counter and opened the can of the drink and took a long gulp, and then put it back down.

"Morning, Alex. How many hours you put in this week, boy?" Oh that's right, it was pay day, and Alex did a quick calculation in his head. He'd worked four hours most of the weekdays, and then three on Saturday.

"Twenty-three." He answered, holding out a hand for the bills that the man would place in it.

Mr. Ross licked a finger and flicked through some bills, finally settling on a ten and four ones, and setting them in the young man's palm.

"Mr. Ross, this is less than last week." Alex had worked more or less the same last week, and had gotten eighteen, and now this was four dollars less.

"Son, business is bad, and you are the one who works less hours than anyone else. Therefore, I had to dock your pay, you follow?" Mr. Ross explained, lighting a cigarette and looking at the young boy.

"No."

"What?"

"I don't follow, Mr. Ross." Alex stared at the man, and a frown covered his face, thinking of the lie he had been told. He knew another man who put in less hours than him, and now he was being docked pay? Bullshit.

"What's not to follow?"

"You know I work more than half your employees, and you sit here lyin' to me." Alex crumpled the bills in his hand and continued to stare menacingly at the store owner.

"Son, why would I lie to y-"

"BULLSHIT!" The boy had had it, and yelled at the old man, who stepped back and took a drag from the cigarette, and then blew it at the teenager.

"Now see-"

"You know my family needs this, you know I put in more hours than almost anyone else who works here even though I have school, but you still try to cheat me! I have been loyal to you for the last three years, and now you try to dock my pay to where my family will starve? FUCK YOU!" Alex yelled at the old man, and the slapped the can of his favorite drink, sending it skittering across the counter and to the floor behind it.

"Now wai-" Mr. Ross tried to yell out the door, but Alex was already out, halfway down the street to where he knew he had friends.

Alex knew he shouldn't have done what he did, but he couldn't take the old man's lies anymore. He was being paid less so he could pay his friends who worked there more, but he worked even more hours than them. He needed the money, and he would find another place to get it, but Mr. Ross certainly would be off his reference list.

He sighed and looked across the street. A little girl was playing tag on the sidewalk with an older kid, and they were weaving between people and tagging each other. If only he could be young and carefree like that again.

He took out a that he carried with him in his wallet and looked at it. It was a picture of him, his mother, and his father in front of a baseball field, with him holding up his wooden bat, and the ball that he had always loved.

His dad was a blonde haired man, with muscles that came from playing football in his youth, high school, and college. His eyes were hard and his smile was what warmed the teen as he looked at it.

He looked to his mother, the brown-haired woman who had supported him in his love for baseball, and had come to all his games – even the ones they lost. Her eyes were soft, he smile a great one before the poverty had caught up with them, along with their second and third children.

Alex fought tears as he took a left into an alleyway and looked at the walls of graffiti. He had done some of that before, and he wasn't proud of it, but his artwork was very good with the spraypaint. He'd sprayed a baseball, with his initials backwards at the bottom in anyone tried to identify who'd done it.

A smile reached his lips as he finally reached his destination: The back door of Tony's Auto Store.


End file.
